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Artist Educator Author Consultant

Writing

HAROLD PEARSE: AUTHOR

Harold Pearse (Photo by Louise Muenstermann

As a post-secondary art educator, other roles, in addition to those of artist and teacher, come into play – those of researcher and author. I see each as complementing and informing the others, bridging theory and practice. This dynamic dialectical relationship between theory and practice is called praxis. It is theory into practice, practice out of theory. Theory informs practice and vice versa. Consequently, my research and writing relate to and come from my experiences, education and practice as both artist and teacher. I am interested in how and why people learn in, through and about art and how the field of art education has evolved internationally and in Canada. A passion is drawing: its history, pedagogy and practice.

I am particularly interested in artists from those groups that have been traditionally marginalized from mainstream visual art institutions by virtue of race, class, age and ability (i.e. Black Nova Scotian artists, Nova Scotia Folk artists, child artists and artists with developmental disabilities).

Books and Exhibition Catalogues

Editor and principal author: From Drawing to Visual Culture: A History of Art Education in Canada, McGill-Queens’ University Press, 2006

Co-author (with Donald Soucy) of a book on the history of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design called The First Hundred Years, NSCAD & UNB,1992

Human Rights and Citizenship: Through the Eyes of Artists (Co Edited with Paul Freeman and Wendy Hollo with a preface by John Ralston Saul), Nina Haggerty Centre for the Arts Stollery Gallery, Edmonton AB, 2004

“An Outsider’s view of Black Art in Nova Scotia” in In this Place . . . Black Art in Nova Scotia, co-curated with David Woods, the Anna Leonowens Gallery, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, NS, 2001

“The lost art of pedagogy “(with Cynthia Taylor and Amy Brook Snider), The Canadian Review of Art Education, Volume 38, 2012, pp. 5-16, The Canadian Society for Education through Art. (Reprint with postscript by Harold Pearse)